The article examines the issue of climate change and its importance to Italian politics. In particular, the authors analyse whether political parties and their leaders give due importance to the issues in their party literature and speeches. In order to investigate this phenomenon, the authors studied manifestos of those political parties represented in Parliament between 2008 and 2013, other official documents available on their websites and official statements of political leaders. The overall picture emerging is a substantial lack of attention paid to climate change, which is also poorly represented in the Italian media. One of the key problems, however, lies in what we define as the ‘global’ dimension of the climate change debate that makes it look unattractive to local political discourse (where Italian politics is traditionally rooted). We argue this impacts negatively on public opinion and the lack of Italian public policies aimed at ensuring sustainability and promoting good behaviour and environmental best practice.

The article examines the issue of climate change and its importance to Italian politics. In particular, the authors analyse whether political parties and their leaders give due importance to the issues in their party literature and speeches. In order to investigate this phenomenon, the authors studied manifestos of those political parties represented in Parliament between 2008 and 2013, other official documents available on their websites and official statements of political leaders. The overall picture emerging is a substantial lack of attention paid to climate change, which is also poorly represented in the Italian media. One of the key problems, however, lies in what we define as the ‘global’ dimension of the climate change debate that makes it look unattractive to local political discourse (where Italian politics is traditionally rooted). We argue this impacts negatively on public opinion and the lack of Italian public policies aimed at ensuring sustainability and promoting good behaviour and environmental best practice.